Hoodwinked (21 page)

“Is that so?” he said, as his eyes twinkled mischievously. “Well, I do have an idea or two on that subject. When we've had dessert.”

“So do I.” She smoothed her fingers over his big hand, loving the very texture of it. Her hand slid into his and she clasped it warmly. “Jake,” she said hesitantly, meeting his eyes. “Joseph,” she corrected,
and all the playfulness went out of her face. “I'm carrying your child.”

At first she didn't think he'd heard her. He just sat staring at her. He didn't even seem to move. His eyes got wider, and darker, and the big hand in hers began to contract with growing hunger.

“You're what?” he asked huskily.

She smiled, and then she laughed. “I'm pregnant!”

“My God. My God!” He came around the table, laughing, scooped her up and sat down with her in his lap. “When? How long?”

“A little over six months from now,” she sighed, nuzzling her face against him. “I wanted to be sure before I told you, and I wasn't until I saw the doctor yesterday.”

“We've been married a little over three months,” he murmured, counting back. Then he grinned and she colored. “Just about,” he breathed, brushing his mouth over hers, “the afternoon you whispered something about nine months…”

“Hush!” She laughed, then reached up and kissed him, stilling the words on his lips.

A long moment later, a discreet cough parted them. They looked up, blank-faced, as Mrs. Candles set the pudding on the table.

She smiled at their blank looks. “Pudding,” she explained. “It's healthy stuff. Great for blossoming parents.”

“However did you know?” Maureen gasped.

Mrs. Candles grinned. “I had six of my own, didn't I tell you? I'll just bring the cream in, then I'll go to my room and watch television.”

Jake chuckled as she left. “She's terrific,” he murmured. “And much more pleasant than a
temperamental French chef throwing things about in the kitchen.”

“Darling, if you miss that, I'm sure Mrs. Candles could throw a pot now and again, just to make you feel comfortable.”

“No need,” he murmured against her mouth. “We're going to be too busy to notice. Aren't we?”

Six months later, Joshua Blake MacFaber came home from the hospital in his father's arms while his mother was gently eased from the car and into a wheelchair for the trip inside. It had been a difficult birth, ending in a cesarean section, but Maureen was so proud of their little boy that she hadn't minded the discomfort one bit.

“Isn't he the image of his father?” she asked Mrs. Candles as they brought him inside.

“Indeed he is, madam,” the cook replied, smiling at the tiny bundle MacFaber was holding close against his heart. “Right down to his eyes. They'll be dark, you can tell.”

Once Maureen was in bed, and little Joshua was curled up in her arms asleep, Jake offered to take him.

“You need to baby that incision along,” he whispered as he lifted the tiny little boy in his big arms and sat down in the chair by the bed.

“Do I really?” she teased, her eyes glowing with love. “Or do you just like holding your son?”

“A bit of both.” He touched the tiny sleeping face, and a wave of love so fierce that it made his cheeks ruddy washed over him. “My God, he's a miracle,” he breathed.

“Yes.” Maureen reached out, grimacing as the incision pulled, and touched Jake's hand where it rested on the child's body over the soft blanket. “I
love you, darling,” she whispered. “Thank you for sticking it out with me.”

For he'd been there every second through her long labor, right up until the time they'd wheeled her into surgery. They'd prepared for natural childbirth, but something had gone wrong at the last minute.

“He's mine, too,” he reminded her. His hand curled around hers and his eyes darkened. “Like you.”

“You aren't sorry you married me?” she teased sleepily.

“I'm sorry it took me so long to find you,” he replied, and he wasn't laughing. His eyes softened as he looked at her tired face. “I've never said the words, have I?” he asked quietly. “Not even when we made love.”

“You wouldn't have stayed with me if you hadn't cared a little,” she replied evasively.

His fingers edged between hers and he looked at her entwined hands and at their little boy, sleeping so peacefully in his arms. “I had to learn what love was before I could feel it, or express it,” he said simply. “I learned that it's selfless. It puts the other person's feelings first, the other person's needs first. It never demands, it only accepts.” He lifted his dark, steady eyes to hers. “Gibran said that love can't be directed, that if it finds you worthy, it directs
your
course.” His fingers contracted around hers while her heart ran wild. “Will it shock you to learn that it's been directing my course for quite some time now, Maureen?”

Her lips parted. “It shouldn't,” she confessed. “But I think it does. You're so private…”

“I love you,” he said gruffly, his eyes blazing with it. “Deathlessly. Obsessively. I don't even know when
it became love, but I know when I realized it. It was the day I came back from Chicago and you met me at the airport. You looked as if I'd hit you, and I felt sick at the things I'd said. I'd missed you so terribly, and I couldn't even tell you. Then we went back to my apartment, after we'd bought the house.” He smiled wickedly. “And I told you something I'd never told anyone. That was when you made love to me. And somewhere in the middle of it, I knew that you were my world.”

She colored at the sweetness of the memory and her fingers curled lovingly around his. “I knew that about you from the very beginning, Mr. MacFaber.” She smiled. “Even if I didn't know your name, you've been my world since the first time I saw you.”

“Maybe life would have been less complicated if I'd been that mechanic.”

“It would have. But I don't love you any less as you truly are.” She touched their son's sleeping face. “And he won't, either. You'll be his whole world, too.”

He had to swallow twice before he could answer her. It was new, to admit love and hear it spoken of so openly. But he liked it. He liked it very much.

He lifted dark eyes to hers and smiled. “I guess it's a good thing that I've delegated some authority at the corporation, then, isn't it?” he murmured. “Things are going to be a lot less complicated from now on. I'll have an occasional trip out of town, but I'll be home most nights and on weekends.”

“Jake!”

“Shocked? I told you. I love you. I can't very well be a proper husband and father if I'm never home.”

“But the corporation…”

“Is no longer my life,” he said simply. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it hungrily. “You are,” he said, and the tone of his voice made her skin tingle.

“We can go on picnics,” she whispered. “And have birthday parties for Joshua.”

“And his brothers and sisters,” he added with a purely masculine glitter in his dark eyes.

She caught her breath, and her own eyes began to sparkle. “Oh, darling!” she whispered.

“There's just one thing,” he said, and he looked so somber that Maureen felt apprehensive.

“What?” she asked worriedly.

“Could you please ask Mrs. Candles to stop making chicken crepes?”

“But it's your favorite dish!” she exclaimed.

“It was, until we had it every night for two weeks,” he said through his teeth.

She burst out laughing. “I'll save you, don't worry. We'll never have chicken crepes again.”

“Good.”

“We'll have beef crepes instead.”

He started to say something, but young Joshua moved and opened his tiny eyes. And the playful banter got lost somewhere in the wonder of two new parents looking at their infant son.

* * * * *

 

Continue reading with a sneak peek of Untamed by Diana Palmer!

 

Clarisse walked into the building where the awards were being held, and several pair of male eyes went immediately to her slender, beautiful figure in the clinging white dress she wore. Her blond hair curled toward her face like feathers, emphasizing her exquisite bone structure, her perfect skin and teeth, her wide blue eyes. She was a beauty. In the gown, she looked like some Grecian goddess come down to earth to taunt mortals.

She didn't even notice the attention she was getting. Her eyes were on the podium where the General would speak. There was an orchestra. It was playing soft, easy-listening sort of music while people gathered in small groups to converse. Most of the conversation was in Spanish here, not Portuguese, because Spanish was Barrera's official language.

She smiled sadly at the little cliques. To Clarisse, who was always alone, it seemed like just one more gathering where she'd stand by herself while men tried to entice her. Sometimes she hated the way she looked. She didn't want male attention.

She paused by a table where drinks were being served when her arm was taken by a tall man she recognized as one of General Machado's advisers. He smiled at her. “We were hoping that you would come, Miss Carrington,” he said in softly accented English. “We have the other honorees backstage. The awards ceremony will be first, followed by dancing and drinking and utter pandemonium,” he chuckled.

She smiled up at him. “The pandemonium sounds nice. They shouldn't have done this for me,” she added. “I didn't really do anything except get shot and captured.”

He turned and smiled down at her. “You did a great deal more than that. All of us who live here are grateful to you and the others, for giving us back our country.”

“Are Peg and Winslow here?” she asked hopefully.

“Alas, no,” he replied solemnly. “Her father had to have surgery, just a minor thing, but they were both uncomfortable with the idea of not going to sit with him.”

“That's like Peg,” she said softly, and smiled. “She's such a sweet person.”

“She thinks quite highly of you, as well, as does her husband. And El General, of course,” he added with a chuckle.

“Where is the general?” she wondered.

He nodded his head toward where a tall, distinguished Latin man in a dinner jacket towered over a tall brunette in a striking blue gown.

“It's Maddie!” she exclaimed. “She treated Eduardo Boas, who was shot before I was kidnapped.”

“Yes. She and the general are, I believe, getting married soon,” he whispered, laughing at her delighted smile. “But you must not mention this. I am not supposed to know.”

She smiled up at him. “I know absolutely nothing. I swear,” she added facetiously.

“Not true, Tat. You're plenty smart enough,” came a deep, husky voice from behind her.

Her blood froze. Her heart started doing the tango. She didn't want to turn around. She hadn't dreamed that he'd show up.

“Señor Rourke will escort you to where the others are gathered backstage,” he said, nodding and bowing. Then he deserted her.

“Aren't you going to turn around, Tat?” he asked very softly.

She took a deep breath and faced him. He looked different. She couldn't understand why at first. Then she realized it was because his hair was short. He'd cut his hair. She wondered why. It had been in that long ponytail for years.

“Hello, Stanton,” she said quietly. “I didn't expect you to be here.”

He looked down at her intently, his one eye narrowed and piercing as he drank in the sight of her, the memory of her in his arms making his heart race. There were no more barriers. He could have her. He could hold her and kiss her. He could make love to her…

He shook himself mentally. He had to go slow. “I was at a loose end,” he said carelessly.

“I see.” She was uneasy. She kept looking around, as if she wanted to be rescued. In fact, she did.

He looked around, too. “Did you come alone?” he asked suddenly, and there was a bite in his voice.

She swallowed. “I'd asked Ruy to come with me, but he had to fly to Argentina to treat an old friend.”

“Ruy…Carvajal, your doctor friend.”

“That's right.”

He scowled. “You aren't dating him, for God's sake?” he asked curtly. “My God, Tat, he's twenty years your senior!”

She couldn't meet his eyes. “He's older than I am, yes.”

He felt his muscles tighten from head to toe. She couldn't be getting involved with the doctor. Surely not!

His silence coaxed her into looking up. His expression confounded her. In another man, it would look like jealousy. But Rourke would never be jealous of her. He hated her.

She moved restlessly. “We should go backstage.”

“Are you going to be here overnight?” he asked as they walked.

“I fly back to Manaus in the morning,” she replied.

“I'm here overnight, as well.”

She didn't say anything. She knew that he was going to avoid her like the plague, as usual.

“Which hotel are you staying in?” he asked abruptly.

“Why? Do you want to make sure you can get one at least half the city away from it?” she burst out.

He stopped dead. “I've got a lot to make up to you,” he said solemnly. “I don't even know where to start. I've done so much damage, Tat,” he added in a husky tone. “Far too much.”

She looked up at him, shocked.

He reached out toward her face, only to have her jerk back from him and avert her eyes.

It hurt more than he'd ever dreamed anything could.

“Tat,” he whispered roughly, wounded.

“Don't you remember?” she bit off. “You told me…never to touch you. You said that I was repulsive…” Her voice broke. She walked around him and moved blindly to the back, where a man in a suit was motioning to them to get with the other honorees. She didn't look to see if Rourke was coming behind her. She didn't want to see him.